Cover image of Discovery & Inspiration

Discovery & Inspiration

Discovery & Inspiration asks “What can we learn by talking to scholars about their research? What makes them so passionate about the subjects they study? What is it like to make a new discovery? T... Read more

Ranked #1

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Simon Middleton, “Changing Forms of Value: The Shift to Paper Money in Eighteenth-Century America”

Simon Middleton, “Changing Forms of Value: The Shift to Paper Money in Eighteenth-Century America”

We tend to think of money as a familiar object that plays a role in our everyday lives. However, when we consider the ch... Read more

29 May 2020

18mins

Ranked #2

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David Christian, "Big History: Between Nothing and Everything"

David Christian, "Big History: Between Nothing and Everything"

Since the early modern era, history has been largely viewed through an anthropocentric lens, skewing towards the involve... Read more

20 Jun 2017

21mins

Ranked #3

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Christina Snyder, “Slavery After the Civil War: How Bondage Persisted in the US and its Territories”

Christina Snyder, “Slavery After the Civil War: How Bondage Persisted in the US and its Territories”

As commonly understood, slavery in the United States officially came to an end with the surrender of the Confederacy and... Read more

22 May 2020

23mins

Ranked #4

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Mab Segrest, “A Metahistory of Suffering: Race, Lunacy, and Psychiatry in Milledgeville, Georgia”

Mab Segrest, “A Metahistory of Suffering: Race, Lunacy, and Psychiatry in Milledgeville, Georgia”

Historically, issues surrounding psychiatric care in the United States have produced crises of various kinds—perhaps now... Read more

16 Apr 2018

24mins

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Ranked #5

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Thérèse Cory, “Aquinas from Above and Below: Revisiting Ancient Conceptions of the Mind”

Thérèse Cory, “Aquinas from Above and Below: Revisiting Ancient Conceptions of the Mind”

The influence that medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas has had on Western thought is difficult to fully g... Read more

16 Jul 2018

14mins

Ranked #6

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Ann Wierda Rowland, “Reading the Readers: Books Clubs of the Past”

Ann Wierda Rowland, “Reading the Readers: Books Clubs of the Past”

When we think of the way in which past audiences encountered poems and novels, we often tend to imagine a silent and sol... Read more

10 Apr 2020

17mins

Ranked #7

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Wendy Griswold, “Place-Making: Regional Identity, Neuroaesthetics, and the Humanities”

Wendy Griswold, “Place-Making: Regional Identity, Neuroaesthetics, and the Humanities”

Over the past century, revolutions in technology and increased mobility have fostered connections across vast spaces and... Read more

5 Feb 2018

17mins

Ranked #8

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Elizabeth Otto, “Bauhaus, Revisited: Complicating the Legacy of the German Art School”

Elizabeth Otto, “Bauhaus, Revisited: Complicating the Legacy of the German Art School”

Next year will mark the centennial of the founding of Bauhaus, the German center for aesthetic thought founded by Walter... Read more

9 Jun 2018

21mins

Ranked #9

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Stephanie Foote, “The Art of Waste: Garbage, Narrative, and the Environmental Humanities”

Stephanie Foote, “The Art of Waste: Garbage, Narrative, and the Environmental Humanities”

The average American produces four and a half pounds of trash every single day, and, as a whole, the U.S. generates near... Read more

5 Mar 2018

19mins

Ranked #10

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Ted Underwood, “Distant Horizons: Reading in the Age of Algorithms”

Ted Underwood, “Distant Horizons: Reading in the Age of Algorithms”

Proponents of distant reading practices in which computers are used to analyze vast quantities of textual material asser... Read more

26 Aug 2019

7mins

Ranked #11

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Joni Adamson, “Imagining Desirable Futures in the Midst of Ecological Crises”

Joni Adamson, “Imagining Desirable Futures in the Midst of Ecological Crises”

With increasing urgency, climate scientists and environmentalists have sought to mobilize public action to address the c... Read more

26 Aug 2019

22mins

Ranked #12

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Laura Murphy, “Modern Slave Narratives”

Laura Murphy, “Modern Slave Narratives”

Legalized slavery has been abolished around the world, yet human trafficking remains a significant problem. Though slave... Read more

2 Apr 2018

17mins

Ranked #13

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Gretchen Murphy, “How Federalist Women Shaped America”

Gretchen Murphy, “How Federalist Women Shaped America”

Though its viability as a political party was short-lived, the influence of the Federalists extended well beyond the ear... Read more

26 Aug 2019

22mins

Ranked #14

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John McGowan, “From Comedy to Comity: How Comic Literature Can Guide Us Toward a More Civil Society”

John McGowan, “From Comedy to Comity: How Comic Literature Can Guide Us Toward a More Civil Society”

A democratic society relies on the ability of citizens to address one another in a measured and temperate fashion, yet c... Read more

22 Jan 2018

15mins

Ranked #15

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Mar Hicks, “The Meta-Narrative of the Machine: Computing and Social Inequalities in Great Britain”

Mar Hicks, “The Meta-Narrative of the Machine: Computing and Social Inequalities in Great Britain”

In the popular imagination, computers are not only superior to humans in speed and accuracy, but they do their work free... Read more

26 Aug 2019

19mins

Ranked #16

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Nancy J. Hirschmann, “Bringing Back the Body: A Political Theory of Disability”

Nancy J. Hirschmann, “Bringing Back the Body: A Political Theory of Disability”

For years, public discourse and policy debates about people with disabilities have focused on the rights of those with m... Read more

8 Jan 2018

15mins

Ranked #17

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Joseph E. Taylor, III, “Conservation Controversies: Public Lands in the American West”

Joseph E. Taylor, III, “Conservation Controversies: Public Lands in the American West”

Between 1891 and 1939 a substantial portion of the land area of states in the American West were set aside for managemen... Read more

26 Aug 2019

20mins

Ranked #18

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Hollis Robbins, “The Double-Voiced Form: The African American Sonnet Tradition”

Hollis Robbins, “The Double-Voiced Form: The African American Sonnet Tradition”

First emerging in the Italian Renaissance, the sonnet was used to document and address a problem, such as the pain of un... Read more

19 Mar 2018

17mins

Ranked #19

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Harriet Ritvo, “Understanding the Animal, Understanding Ourselves”

Harriet Ritvo, “Understanding the Animal, Understanding Ourselves”

As it has taken shape as a distinct field of scholarly inquiry, animal studies has significantly contributed to our unde... Read more

26 Aug 2019

22mins

Ranked #20

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Lisa Earl Castillo, “Recovering the Story of Casa Branca and Afro-Brazilian Identity”

Lisa Earl Castillo, “Recovering the Story of Casa Branca and Afro-Brazilian Identity”

Founded by freed slaves in the early nineteenth century, the candomblé temple Casa Branca in Salvador, Bahia, was the fi... Read more

26 Aug 2019

18mins

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